The Weekend Download, Edition 4

Welcome back

Welcome to the fourth edition of The Weekend Download, Rev-IQ's Saturday round-up of the most remarkable things that happened in technology this week. Five stories, a number, one from home and something to make you smile, each with one line on why it matters if you run, build or back a technology business.

This week, a lot of things learned to work without us. Drones that drop off your shopping, agents that do a chemist's week in an hour, and robots that no longer need a fence. Fittingly, someone also built an off switch. And we start with the week's biggest story, which we don't usually cover.

The one we couldn't leave out

We don't normally comment on share prices, and we like to keep things positive, but this was too big to leave out.

On Thursday, US technology shares fell sharply. The Nasdaq 100 dropped 6.4%, wiping about US$2.3 trillion in value, and the S&P 500 fell 4.4%, its worst day since April 2025 (Bloomberg). The falls were led by the companies building and powering AI data centres, including the chip makers (AP via NBC Boston). Much of the worry traced back to the US midterm elections. Data centre proposals appeared on 41 local ballots, and voters backed restrictions or rejected development in nearly every one (CNBC). Investors read that as a sign that building AI capacity may get slower and more tightly regulated. In Australia, where the market is lighter on technology, the ASX 200 slipped 0.5% (ABC News).

A few things are worth keeping in mind:

• This was about infrastructure, not usefulness. Investors were repricing how fast data centres get built, not whether customers find AI useful. The stories below are a reminder that the useful work hasn't stopped.
• AI now needs community support as well as capital. Power bills and local approvals have become part of the AI conversation, and that doesn't change on election day. Expect "how much energy does it use?" to become a common buyer question.
• The Finance conversation gets sharper. A day like this makes boards and CFOs ask what their AI spending is actually delivering. Technology businesses that can show the return in the customer's own numbers will find those conversations easier.

Why it matters: share prices move on expectations, and this week the expectations were reset. Building AI that customers will happily pay for still works the same way.

The five

1. Zipline raises US$1.5 billion as Walmart adds 300 drone sites

Drone delivery company Zipline has raised US$1.5 billion at a US$21.5 billion valuation, nearly tripling its value in about 10 months (Reuters). On the same day, Walmart signed a multi-year deal to add 300 Zipline delivery sites across the US. The two have been working together since 2021, and Walmart's drone program has already completed more than 2 million deliveries, some arriving in as little as 30 minutes (Walmart). Walmart's Greg Cathey put it neatly: customers "try drone delivery for the novelty and then continue to come back to it for the convenience".

Why it matters: novelty gets a customer to try something once. Convenience is what brings them back, and it's what you should measure.

2. CrowdStrike builds an off switch for AI agents

CrowdStrike has released an AI Kill Switch, which lets a security team stop a misbehaving AI agent, block it from starting again and cut off its access to the company network (CrowdStrike). Only an authorised administrator can pull the switch, and every use is recorded. "When you deploy agents with a kill switch, you stay in control," said CEO George Kurtz. A customer's security chief described it as giving his team "the final say".

Why it matters: businesses will let AI agents do more once they know they can stop them. If you sell agents, the controls are part of what you're selling.

3. Google DeepMind turns days of drug chemistry into an hour

Google DeepMind has released a set of chemistry tools for its Antigravity AI agent, built to speed up early drug discovery (Google DeepMind). Working on real lung cancer treatments, the agent searched thousands of compounds, compared them and proposed new molecules with routes to make them "in just an hour", work that usually takes multiple days and real computing expertise. The AI handles the reasoning, while proven chemistry software does the calculations. Google is also giving 10,000 scientists free access to its highest usage tier (Google Antigravity).

Why it matters: the strongest AI products pair the model with tools people already trust, so experts can check the work rather than take it on faith.

4. Agility becomes the first listed humanoid robot company in the US

Agility Robotics, maker of the Digit humanoid robot, began trading on Nasdaq this week, which it says makes it the first US-listed company focused purely on humanoid robots. The listing followed a merger that raised about US$465 million, including an investment led by Foxconn (Agility Robotics). Digit already works at GXO, Schaeffler and Toyota, and at one GXO warehouse in Georgia it has moved more than 100,000 totes. Agility says it has more than US$300 million in committed orders for Digit 5, which is designed to work closer to people. Earlier models could only work behind protective barriers (Quartz).

Why it matters: in a field full of impressive demos, real customers and three years of paid work are the proof that counts.

5. Physicists confirm a third type of magnetism

For nearly 90 years, magnets came in two kinds: ferromagnets, like the ones on your fridge, and antiferromagnets, whose magnetism cancels itself out. Now a team led by the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has confirmed a third, called altermagnetism (ScienceDaily). Using X-rays at a facility in France, the researchers showed that manganese telluride, long filed under one of the existing types, behaves in a distinct way. They ran the experiment in 2024 and repeated it in 2025 to be sure. Altermagnets have no overall magnetic pull, yet can still carry the kind of current used in next-generation memory, which could help make data centres more energy efficient.

Why it matters: sometimes the next breakthrough is sitting in a category everyone thought was settled.

Number of the week: 30%

That's the share of the world's humanoid robots shipped in the first half of 2026 that went into real work, up from about 16% in 2025, according to IDC estimates reported by HRD. The rest went to research labs, schools, exhibitions and government data-collection centres. Makers shipped close to 25,000 humanoids in those six months, more than in the whole of 2025, and Chinese companies built about 95% of them.

Why it matters: the robots are still mostly in the showroom, but the share doing real work has nearly doubled in a year. That's the trend worth watching.

One from home

Sydney-born Future Secure AI has raised US$80 million (A$115 million) at a valuation of US$1.2 billion (Startup Daily). Founded in 2023 by Mehrdad Baghai and Michael Hunter, the company builds AI "co-workers" for large organisations, with teams of AI agents, each given a name and a face, overseen by a human supervisor. The round was led by Square Peg, Yarra Capital Management and Firetrail (SmartCompany). The company expects annual recurring revenue to approach US$100 million by the end of 2026, and an ASX listing is on the agenda for late 2027.

Why it matters: a three-year-old Australian company has reached unicorn status by selling AI as part of the team, with a human still in charge.

Just for fun

Netflix and Bandai have made a Stranger Things Tamagotchi with an upside-down screen, in honour of the show's Upside Down (The Verge). It works like any other Tamagotchi, except, as The Verge puts it, "you'll have to get used to raising your pet in the simulated upside down world". It launches next February for around US$20.

Finally, a gadget that's supposed to be upside down. If you're reading this newsletter upside down, you're ready.

Until next week

That's the week that was. If something here caught your eye, tell us on LinkedIn. And if you're working out how to charge for AI, this week's Insight, China has already decided how to price AI agents, shows how Tencent, ByteDance and Alibaba landed on almost the same answer. Everything else lives at rev-iq.ai/insights.

Have a great weekend.

Rev-IQ Advisory

The Weekend Download is general information only, not financial or investment advice. Every story links to its original source. Archived as published on LinkedIn, with minor edits for the web.